Food ministry takes action against tainted seeds’ dealers

ISLAMABAD: Food ministry has unleashed a barrage of actions, including arrests and penalties, against marketers of poor quality seeds as the government stepped up efforts to achieve bumper cotton this season.

“Ministry of National Food Security and Research is doing great service in ensuring the provision of healthy seed to the farmers especially when the cotton cultivation is around the corner,” the food ministry said in a statement.

The Federal Committee on Agriculture last month set cotton production target of 15 million bales from an area of 2.895 million hectares in summer 2019/20. Cotton production from the previous season is lurking below 12 million bales, below the target of 14.37 million bales for 2018/19.

The food ministry said teams and committees of the federal seed certification and registration department are working in various districts for the purpose of enforcing the Seed Act.

“These teams inspect the seed markets and collect samples and those found guilty of selling uncertified/unapproved seeds are taken into custody and challans are served to such dealers/sellers,” the food ministry said. Minister for National Food Security and Research Mehboob Sultan directed the officials to furnish the reports of actions to the ministry. “Implementation must be ensured,” the food minister was quoted as saying in the statement.

Cotton is a major cash crop as a large number of farmers depend on it to earn livelihoods, while textile sector that accounts for around 60 percent in the country’s exports of $23 to $24 billion. The crop has one percent share in GDP, and adds 5.5 percent to agriculture value-addition. Decline in its production entails depressing economic growth, which has already been forecast by the central bank to fall at 3.5 to four percent in the current fiscal year of 2018/19 from 5.2 percent in the last fiscal year. Cotton output has been estimated to have already declined more than five million bales in the seven years.

The ministry of national food security has also resorted to 24/7 monitoring of the services of Department of Plant Protection (DPP) and federal seed certification and registration department. Its objective is to streamline and monitor the day-to-day regulatory working of DPP in areas of export and import of plants and plant materials, agricultural pesticides and pest-free agro commodities. The food ministry has also formulated a special social media group to update daily activities of the DPP, including issuance of import permits, release order and issuance of sanitary and phyto-sanitary certificate. The federal seed certification and registration department upload information on the social media for the minister and secretary of the national food security and research. “The purpose for the exercise is to monitor the activities on daily basis, prevent delay and expedite the release of consignments and enhance professionalism in both the departments,” the ministry added in the statement.